London Ave. Flood Gate Closed ~Mark Schleifstein
~In accordance with the new operating procedures announced Tuesday, New Orleans District Commander Col. Alvin B. Lee ordered the London Avenue Canal gates closed Saturday.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wet spots on Lake Pontchartrain levee in Metairie pose no danger, Corps says~Dixclaimer! Bat Signal!
~Editilla been down this lonesome road before.
Corps/OPP to discuss PR-effects of storm protection projects
~Optimal Process Partners, the Corps $5,000,000 PR Firm, will hold two public meetings next week.
Lafitte, lower Jefferson still recovering from Ike, looking for protection~Maya Rodriguez
Save The Date! Big Big Big Event!
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Leonard Odom gone from NO inspector general's office
Pig Slabbed
The Impact of No Impact Man: or, I Sure Wish I Could Walk to Work ~CenLamar
David Byrne's Essay on the Ideal City, Biking, and New Orleans
~World Class New Orleans
Katrina hero Honore wows Shreveport NAACP audience
~John Andrew Prime
Pointe-aux-Chenes residents learn about flood protection
~Nikki Buskey
New Orleans artist wants you to stop and look~Doug MacCash
New Orleans Museum of Art presents Skylar Fein:
Youth Manifesto
Feel the music of Acadiana
~Cody Daigle
~Editilla been down this lonesome road before.
Corps/OPP to discuss PR-effects of storm protection projects
~Optimal Process Partners, the Corps $5,000,000 PR Firm, will hold two public meetings next week.
Lafitte, lower Jefferson still recovering from Ike, looking for protection~Maya Rodriguez
Save The Date! Big Big Big Event!
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Leonard Odom gone from NO inspector general's office
Pig Slabbed
The Impact of No Impact Man: or, I Sure Wish I Could Walk to Work ~CenLamar
David Byrne's Essay on the Ideal City, Biking, and New Orleans
~World Class New Orleans
Katrina hero Honore wows Shreveport NAACP audience
~John Andrew Prime
Pointe-aux-Chenes residents learn about flood protection
~Nikki Buskey
New Orleans artist wants you to stop and look~Doug MacCash
New Orleans Museum of Art presents Skylar Fein:
Youth Manifesto
Feel the music of Acadiana
~Cody Daigle
Friday, September 11, 2009
Vendredi
A New Look at the 9/11 Commission~Dan Fletcher
~New York fire fighters stand in front of the skeleton of the World Trade Center, left behind just minutes after the collapse of both of the Twin Towers following terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Photo: David Turnley/ CORBIS
~~Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tasked with investigating the government response to the attacks.
His new book, The Ground Truth, picks up where the commission left off — taking a deeper look at the government's disorganized response to the attacks and exposing officials determined to hide their failings from the inquiry.
How 9/11 Should Be Remembered~Rebecca Solnit
~Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. Photo: Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Jim Watson-US Navy
Families stream into New York City's 9/11 ceremony
~Suzanna Ma
Carl Ginsburg: Charity Hospital, New Orleans, and the Obama Administration
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Hospital deaths investigation to be reopened by Orleans Parish district attorney~Laura Maggi
~Posted by NOLAdoctor on 09/11/09 at 10:41AM
~~I’m not sure what I find more shocking: the decisions made at Memorial, or the response among many that these doctors and nurses be “left alone” and lauded as heroes for their actions.
I was a physician at Charity Hospital during Katrina, and I am still struggling to understand WHY the situation at Memorial became what is described in this article. In the many meetings among our hospital staff during that difficult week (we actually had regular meetings every four hours), there was never any discussion or even thought that we would stop treating patients medically, administer lethal doses of medication, or leave before every patient was evacuated alive. Only two patients out of hundreds of patients died during that week—-unlike the nearly 1 out of every 4 who perished at Memorial.
What were the circumstances that led to such different outcomes? The conditions at Charity were not better—in fact, our generators failed two days earlier (Monday Aug 29th) and the hospital was not evacuated until a day after Memorial (Friday). Nor were the patients less acutely ill—since Charity was a Level One Trauma Center, the patients were actually the “sickest of the sick” and included many ventilator-dependent ICU patients and people with end-stage AIDS.
Certainly, revisiting the situation in the hospitals during this disaster is important so we can identify the mistakes, and so we are not doomed to repeat them.
It is absurd for people to suggest that in such difficult conditions, doctors and nurses are beyond scrutiny and should not be held accountable for their actions. Yes, I hold many government officials responsible for the atrocious lack of response.
I am angry that my patients had to wait nearly a week in inhumane conditions while we tried to practice medicine in a very basic way. But I am also furious when I read statements in the NYT article from Dr. Cook that he “couldn’t imagine” the staff carrying down nine patients from the 5th floor.
There is a saying in medicine that you should treat the patient as you would treat a family member. It may be trite, but if Mr. Everett was your father or son or brother, who among us would not do everything possible to bring him down the stairs to waiting rescue? We had several paralyzed patients on my floor, and even a nearly 400 lb man with a broken hip in the hospital—I cannot imagine leaving them behind, or “hastening” their deaths.
It seems like Drs. Cook and Thiele at least, and maybe others at Memorial, feel comfortable with what happened. The rest of us, however, will continue to be haunted by the horrific events there. To create a society where we excuse any and all decisions made during a crisis (especially those made by police, medical staff, and others in power) is not acceptable to me.
There is no harm in re-opening an investigation; perhaps we can learn valuable lessons about what REALLY happened at Memorial so we can be sure that this situation is never repeated.
Of course, I would love to see an 8/29 commission that investigates what happened at every level--that would certainly provide the greatest opportunity to learn from the tragedy of Katrina.
UPDATE~TP: Whoops! Cannizzaro: get it right:
--My office has not reopened an investigation into the deaths at Memorial Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As District Attorney, I have a legal obligation to evaluate statements regarding possible criminal activity in this jurisdiction. I am making that kind of evaluation, but that does not constitute an investigation by this office.
Statement from Orleans Parish District Attorney,
Leon A. Cannizzaro, Jr.~Kreweoftruth
Floodgate Reports - The Bottom Line~NOLA-Dishu
~Editilla Dixclaimas~ We re-hung this post because we really like this Blogger, and appreciate his skin in this game, however due to the extensive counter-comments by Corps "engineer" Soft- Hand Tim Ruppert (who swears he doesn't speak for the Corps)(Ya'hoird me) it is incumbent upon us to warn our readers of Co'Intel'Bro bull shit in the fan.
We have issues with the Corps operating Defensive Blogging on the Nola Blog'0'sphere, and as such, we have gained specific experience with this Corps "engineer" and former President of the LaASCE who showed up last Spring on this Ladder anonymously to mawkishly, smarmishly smear the analysis of a Real Engineer of some 45 years work: Robert Bea, whose Expert Analysis of the Corps' levee failures saved us all from The ASCE'FUCK Lie.
We don't take kindly to cowards who would piss off our Ladder.
I do not like this fellow, what he represents or how he presents it, or how he has ingratiated himself with near gimpish punkery within the Nola Blogging community. But, that is strictly my own opinion and that of my Attorney from the PT Barnham School of Shameless Self Promotions. See what I'm sayin'hearah?
What we have is a fail'ya to comoonicate.
We pay this man's salary. We have enabled him to move to higher ground after his bosses flooded his own neighborhood.
We are the ones he has been waiting for.
“We must find a way to unite, organize and correctly record our histories.” ~slabbed
Face To Face at Winterthur
~Terry Conway~These were the faces of a new republic, created during the earliest years of this country by some of the young nation’s finest portraitists.
Corps says crumbling levee is a non-issue~Dennis Woltering
Pointe-aux-Chenes residents learn about flood protection
~Daily Comet
Some not happy that extension given to rebuild with Road Home ~Susan Edwards
Report: HISD handled influx of Katrina evacuees effectively
~Houston Business Journal
~A University of Houston study has found that the influx of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees made little impact on Houston Independent School District class sizes or resources.
Chiquita returns to pre-Katrina docking space in Gulfport, Miss.
Transgenic Storms~Pruned
EPA identifies 79 coal mine permits for review~Tim Huber
Infamous FEMA Up-Fuckster Michael Brown is up Cold Creek
~Editilla Oh'Yellas~ The next time the Federales decide to crucify your city who ya'gonna call? Brown Buster!
Shit~Crescent City Hack
Saints 2009: Now we can haz cheezburger? Or the end of all things, whichever comes first?
~Library Chronicles
Champagne Girl Rita Alexander and the New Orleans Burlesque Festival~Noah Bonaparte Pais
2009 Voodoo Fest day-by-day music lineup released
~Keith I. Marszalek
Keeping the home fires burnin' is a full-time job~Billy Iuso
~New York fire fighters stand in front of the skeleton of the World Trade Center, left behind just minutes after the collapse of both of the Twin Towers following terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Photo: David Turnley/ CORBIS~~Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tasked with investigating the government response to the attacks.
His new book, The Ground Truth, picks up where the commission left off — taking a deeper look at the government's disorganized response to the attacks and exposing officials determined to hide their failings from the inquiry.
How 9/11 Should Be Remembered~Rebecca Solnit
~Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. Photo: Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Jim Watson-US NavyFamilies stream into New York City's 9/11 ceremony
~Suzanna Ma
Carl Ginsburg: Charity Hospital, New Orleans, and the Obama Administration
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Hospital deaths investigation to be reopened by Orleans Parish district attorney~Laura Maggi
~Posted by NOLAdoctor on 09/11/09 at 10:41AM
~~I’m not sure what I find more shocking: the decisions made at Memorial, or the response among many that these doctors and nurses be “left alone” and lauded as heroes for their actions.
I was a physician at Charity Hospital during Katrina, and I am still struggling to understand WHY the situation at Memorial became what is described in this article. In the many meetings among our hospital staff during that difficult week (we actually had regular meetings every four hours), there was never any discussion or even thought that we would stop treating patients medically, administer lethal doses of medication, or leave before every patient was evacuated alive. Only two patients out of hundreds of patients died during that week—-unlike the nearly 1 out of every 4 who perished at Memorial.
What were the circumstances that led to such different outcomes? The conditions at Charity were not better—in fact, our generators failed two days earlier (Monday Aug 29th) and the hospital was not evacuated until a day after Memorial (Friday). Nor were the patients less acutely ill—since Charity was a Level One Trauma Center, the patients were actually the “sickest of the sick” and included many ventilator-dependent ICU patients and people with end-stage AIDS.
Certainly, revisiting the situation in the hospitals during this disaster is important so we can identify the mistakes, and so we are not doomed to repeat them.
It is absurd for people to suggest that in such difficult conditions, doctors and nurses are beyond scrutiny and should not be held accountable for their actions. Yes, I hold many government officials responsible for the atrocious lack of response.
I am angry that my patients had to wait nearly a week in inhumane conditions while we tried to practice medicine in a very basic way. But I am also furious when I read statements in the NYT article from Dr. Cook that he “couldn’t imagine” the staff carrying down nine patients from the 5th floor.
There is a saying in medicine that you should treat the patient as you would treat a family member. It may be trite, but if Mr. Everett was your father or son or brother, who among us would not do everything possible to bring him down the stairs to waiting rescue? We had several paralyzed patients on my floor, and even a nearly 400 lb man with a broken hip in the hospital—I cannot imagine leaving them behind, or “hastening” their deaths.
It seems like Drs. Cook and Thiele at least, and maybe others at Memorial, feel comfortable with what happened. The rest of us, however, will continue to be haunted by the horrific events there. To create a society where we excuse any and all decisions made during a crisis (especially those made by police, medical staff, and others in power) is not acceptable to me.
There is no harm in re-opening an investigation; perhaps we can learn valuable lessons about what REALLY happened at Memorial so we can be sure that this situation is never repeated.
Of course, I would love to see an 8/29 commission that investigates what happened at every level--that would certainly provide the greatest opportunity to learn from the tragedy of Katrina.
UPDATE~TP: Whoops! Cannizzaro: get it right:
--My office has not reopened an investigation into the deaths at Memorial Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As District Attorney, I have a legal obligation to evaluate statements regarding possible criminal activity in this jurisdiction. I am making that kind of evaluation, but that does not constitute an investigation by this office.
Statement from Orleans Parish District Attorney,
Leon A. Cannizzaro, Jr.~Kreweoftruth
Floodgate Reports - The Bottom Line~NOLA-Dishu
~Editilla Dixclaimas~ We re-hung this post because we really like this Blogger, and appreciate his skin in this game, however due to the extensive counter-comments by Corps "engineer" Soft- Hand Tim Ruppert (who swears he doesn't speak for the Corps)(Ya'hoird me) it is incumbent upon us to warn our readers of Co'Intel'Bro bull shit in the fan.
We have issues with the Corps operating Defensive Blogging on the Nola Blog'0'sphere, and as such, we have gained specific experience with this Corps "engineer" and former President of the LaASCE who showed up last Spring on this Ladder anonymously to mawkishly, smarmishly smear the analysis of a Real Engineer of some 45 years work: Robert Bea, whose Expert Analysis of the Corps' levee failures saved us all from The ASCE'FUCK Lie.
We don't take kindly to cowards who would piss off our Ladder.
I do not like this fellow, what he represents or how he presents it, or how he has ingratiated himself with near gimpish punkery within the Nola Blogging community. But, that is strictly my own opinion and that of my Attorney from the PT Barnham School of Shameless Self Promotions. See what I'm sayin'hearah?
What we have is a fail'ya to comoonicate.
We pay this man's salary. We have enabled him to move to higher ground after his bosses flooded his own neighborhood.
We are the ones he has been waiting for.
“We must find a way to unite, organize and correctly record our histories.” ~slabbed
Face To Face at Winterthur
~Terry Conway~These were the faces of a new republic, created during the earliest years of this country by some of the young nation’s finest portraitists.
Corps says crumbling levee is a non-issue~Dennis Woltering
Pointe-aux-Chenes residents learn about flood protection
~Daily Comet
Some not happy that extension given to rebuild with Road Home ~Susan Edwards
Report: HISD handled influx of Katrina evacuees effectively
~Houston Business Journal
~A University of Houston study has found that the influx of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees made little impact on Houston Independent School District class sizes or resources.
Chiquita returns to pre-Katrina docking space in Gulfport, Miss.
Transgenic Storms~Pruned
EPA identifies 79 coal mine permits for review~Tim Huber
Infamous FEMA Up-Fuckster Michael Brown is up Cold Creek
~Editilla Oh'Yellas~ The next time the Federales decide to crucify your city who ya'gonna call? Brown Buster!
Shit~Crescent City Hack
Saints 2009: Now we can haz cheezburger? Or the end of all things, whichever comes first?
~Library Chronicles
Champagne Girl Rita Alexander and the New Orleans Burlesque Festival~Noah Bonaparte Pais
2009 Voodoo Fest day-by-day music lineup released
~Keith I. Marszalek
Keeping the home fires burnin' is a full-time job~Billy Iuso
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Jeudi
Disaster-investigation rules changed by American Society of Civil Engineers
~Mark Schleifstein
~The American Society of Civil Engineers has adopted new rules governing how it will participate in future investigations of natural and man-made disasters, including how it will deal with the touchy issues of who pays for the investigations and when investigators can discuss their findings in public.
But the rules, contained in a new manual, already are being attacked by Levees.org, the New Orleans activist group whose criticisms of the society's actions in investigating levee failures during Hurricane Katrina helped spur the society to appoint an independent task force to review its investigation process.
~Editilla Gotta Ax~ Can we getta ASCE'WIPE?
1st Off, Big Schleif Gets It Goin'On! That's what I'm talkin'bout. Editillero Beat Reportage from a Real Journalist.
2nd Off, Levees.org ain't just another pretty face any more, but 1000s of pretty faces rising up across the country like some kinda Rhizomated Grass Roots Congroovience. It turns out that change comes better when you can invite more congressional districts to the Partay! Yay! And Verily! E Pluribus Mfkn Unum!
So now when this Group puts out the Word, flies the Bat Signal or whateva, it won't be only Saint Mary or Vitty-cent, Sacred Cao or Melonsong Louisiana Representatives who shall hail to da'sky in twembling wanka wonda!
It will be a Coast to Vanishing Coast All Compass Points Bulletin.
Some fine day Congress will suddenly find itself in the Grip of Swamp Mud around its ankles and feel the sting of eucalyptus through the Spanish Moss in its eyes as they face the The Line.
And speaking of The Line...
Stood-UpDate~ In the toss and tussle rink of the hardrock Nola blog'0'reameree', yer'oh'so humble Editilla has received this Dubious Honor but twice, BANNED FROM COMMENTING!
Both times by absolute Wussies Who Can't Handle da'Twoof,
one a frat'rag drive-by attack cartoonist and the other Odin's Teat Sucker -thus far- so we took it as Total Uncle Monte on their parts and notched our bow fo'some'mo. The only thing that makes Editilla go all Beotchwolf is the hunt fo'da Exquisite Corps.
Anyone who stands on That side of their failed levees will meet me sooner or later. Jus'ax Nameless Timmy.
I don't play nice with failed engineering or ASCE'hole politicos.
Now... we'd be the 1st to Admit a certain fetish for hard boiled Lagniappe Noir, we always tend towards the bend, rank da'shank, hit da'bit so to speak as we cut our fangs playing Kick the NeoCon on Harry Shearer's blog (he banned us Twice! ;)
But it appeared that today Your New Orleans Ladder, nonewsladder, Found The Line wit'da Nola.com. What? Yes! We have gotten our savvy ass Banned from the Nola.com comments sections... of all the Dantein Glory Holes.
Get Down, you say! Get Back Up Again, I say! True.
Yes, banned AND had my comments pulled. I am always there, stomping Freak O'lay Corps Defenders (the FOCD), kickin'Astro-turfers and defending the defenders of NOLA.
It is what we do here on the Ladder. Lookout! Sinn Féin
Although they left these comments, having comments pulled en mass has happened before on these Corps Articles, but they rarely issue a Ban on a commentator.
Hence, at least in my case, it appears that there is One salient subject matter in my comments they have pulled and my ultimate censorship from this "forum" for discussion of Corps Actions and the T-P's reportage of them.
Soooo, Guess what common denominator is now in evidence by its absence on that forum? OPP, Optimal Process Partners, the $5,000,000 Corps PR firm hired to massage media article placements and run their little Public Cool Aid Acid Meetings,
among other MisInformation related ops.
Yes, we have an oft-hammered Nail in our Ass over the Conflicts of Interests inherent in OPP/Corps advertising in the Times-Picayune, and yet the T-P seems too often to have ADD regarding several Safety Issues of Corps Ops --like these Pumps that may very well Not Work When We Need Them.
Uh Yeah, they finally reported on those Bad Pumps, but in that asce'buff way they have of only presenting the Corps Spin by a proven faux gumshoe mouthpiece, their go-to girl Grissett.
Of course perchance it was a Grand Coincidence that we had started Priming the Well, in rising worry and frustration at the Lack of Local Coverage of this Dangerous Proposition. Nah?
Let me cut to the chase here: the T-P Banned me en totos from their site for Commenting about OPP on their Corps Articles.
Pretty simple actually, the journalists are always the last to know.
But, what part of NO FEAR do their editors not understand?
NYT Writer Retracts, Corrects "Katrina Shorthand"!
~Through the marvel of the Living Online Article (LOA), here (comment 23) we see that the Timothy Egan of the NYTimes has added a correction, dated 9/06/09 to his review of "Zeitoun", which makes John McQuaid's points that the Flood of New Orleans was a Man Made Disaster. Many of you may be familiar with John McQuaid as co-author of "Path of Destruction" with our own Herollero Mark 'Big Schleif' Schleifstein.
State of the Port of New Orleans: challenged but improving ~Breakbulk
Local levee districts will pay $20 million to settle one Katrina class action lawsuit
~Mark Schleifstein
New Orleans Lawyers file 150 toxic Chinese dry wall lawsuits!
Letters pouring into Times-Picayune protesting destructive LSU/VA proposal
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Nagin, undocumented workers: You're welcome in New Orleans
~Katie Moore
Jim Brown on churches, Louisiana politics and school house presidential speeches ~slabbed
Geoquiz fo'da President Deniers
~Liptrap's Lament-The Line
Charter school issues debated as educators gather for NOLA Conference~David Sentell
KC architectural firm plays role in rebirth of New Orleans
~Steve Paul~Any day now, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is expected to sign a contract to rebuild five libraries destroyed four years ago in the Federal Flood. Not Katrina wake
And if all goes according to plan, the libraries will open next spring, a mere 10 months after groundbreaking, thanks to a fast-track process that has had Kansas City architects operating at a breakneck pace for much of this year.
Business owners divided over future of French Quarter
~Richard A. Webster
What's cookin' in Nagin's Meff lab?~Your Right Hand Thief
Leadership for a change?
~We Could Be Famous
Politics With A Punch!~The show that is funnier than laughing gas, which takes an irreverent look at everything local, political, funny has another banner and teasing panel for Thursday September 10 at the Cricket Club, 2040 St. Charles, starting at 8pm with doors opening at 6. Join Jeff Crouere,
~Tee Ray Bergeron, Stand Up Comedian, Funniest Man Alive
~Mitch Gibbs, WGSO Radio Talk Show Host, Attorney
~Tyrone Hughes, Former New Orleans Saints Superstar
~Irvin Mayfield, Trumpeter, Bandleader, Cultural Ambassador
~Trixie Minx, Burlesque Dancer, Fleur de Tease Show
~James Perry, Mayoral Candidate , Housing Activist
~J.D. Sledge, Comedian Extraordinaire, Top N.O.. Talent
New Orleans Burlesque Festival bump and grind this weekend
~Molly Reid
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Amanda Shaw headline 3rd annual New Orleans Seafood Festival
Blues, jazz singer Juanita Brooks passes away overnight
~Mark Schleifstein
~The American Society of Civil Engineers has adopted new rules governing how it will participate in future investigations of natural and man-made disasters, including how it will deal with the touchy issues of who pays for the investigations and when investigators can discuss their findings in public.
But the rules, contained in a new manual, already are being attacked by Levees.org, the New Orleans activist group whose criticisms of the society's actions in investigating levee failures during Hurricane Katrina helped spur the society to appoint an independent task force to review its investigation process.
~Editilla Gotta Ax~ Can we getta ASCE'WIPE?
1st Off, Big Schleif Gets It Goin'On! That's what I'm talkin'bout. Editillero Beat Reportage from a Real Journalist.
2nd Off, Levees.org ain't just another pretty face any more, but 1000s of pretty faces rising up across the country like some kinda Rhizomated Grass Roots Congroovience. It turns out that change comes better when you can invite more congressional districts to the Partay! Yay! And Verily! E Pluribus Mfkn Unum!
So now when this Group puts out the Word, flies the Bat Signal or whateva, it won't be only Saint Mary or Vitty-cent, Sacred Cao or Melonsong Louisiana Representatives who shall hail to da'sky in twembling wanka wonda!
It will be a Coast to Vanishing Coast All Compass Points Bulletin.
Some fine day Congress will suddenly find itself in the Grip of Swamp Mud around its ankles and feel the sting of eucalyptus through the Spanish Moss in its eyes as they face the The Line.
And speaking of The Line...
Stood-UpDate~ In the toss and tussle rink of the hardrock Nola blog'0'reameree', yer'oh'so humble Editilla has received this Dubious Honor but twice, BANNED FROM COMMENTING!
Both times by absolute Wussies Who Can't Handle da'Twoof,
one a frat'rag drive-by attack cartoonist and the other Odin's Teat Sucker -thus far- so we took it as Total Uncle Monte on their parts and notched our bow fo'some'mo. The only thing that makes Editilla go all Beotchwolf is the hunt fo'da Exquisite Corps.
Anyone who stands on That side of their failed levees will meet me sooner or later. Jus'ax Nameless Timmy.
I don't play nice with failed engineering or ASCE'hole politicos.
Now... we'd be the 1st to Admit a certain fetish for hard boiled Lagniappe Noir, we always tend towards the bend, rank da'shank, hit da'bit so to speak as we cut our fangs playing Kick the NeoCon on Harry Shearer's blog (he banned us Twice! ;)
But it appeared that today Your New Orleans Ladder, nonewsladder, Found The Line wit'da Nola.com. What? Yes! We have gotten our savvy ass Banned from the Nola.com comments sections... of all the Dantein Glory Holes.
Get Down, you say! Get Back Up Again, I say! True.
Yes, banned AND had my comments pulled. I am always there, stomping Freak O'lay Corps Defenders (the FOCD), kickin'Astro-turfers and defending the defenders of NOLA.
It is what we do here on the Ladder. Lookout! Sinn Féin
Although they left these comments, having comments pulled en mass has happened before on these Corps Articles, but they rarely issue a Ban on a commentator.
Hence, at least in my case, it appears that there is One salient subject matter in my comments they have pulled and my ultimate censorship from this "forum" for discussion of Corps Actions and the T-P's reportage of them.
Soooo, Guess what common denominator is now in evidence by its absence on that forum? OPP, Optimal Process Partners, the $5,000,000 Corps PR firm hired to massage media article placements and run their little Public Cool Aid Acid Meetings,
among other MisInformation related ops.
Yes, we have an oft-hammered Nail in our Ass over the Conflicts of Interests inherent in OPP/Corps advertising in the Times-Picayune, and yet the T-P seems too often to have ADD regarding several Safety Issues of Corps Ops --like these Pumps that may very well Not Work When We Need Them.
Uh Yeah, they finally reported on those Bad Pumps, but in that asce'buff way they have of only presenting the Corps Spin by a proven faux gumshoe mouthpiece, their go-to girl Grissett.
Of course perchance it was a Grand Coincidence that we had started Priming the Well, in rising worry and frustration at the Lack of Local Coverage of this Dangerous Proposition. Nah?
Let me cut to the chase here: the T-P Banned me en totos from their site for Commenting about OPP on their Corps Articles.
Pretty simple actually, the journalists are always the last to know.
But, what part of NO FEAR do their editors not understand?
NYT Writer Retracts, Corrects "Katrina Shorthand"!
~Through the marvel of the Living Online Article (LOA), here (comment 23) we see that the Timothy Egan of the NYTimes has added a correction, dated 9/06/09 to his review of "Zeitoun", which makes John McQuaid's points that the Flood of New Orleans was a Man Made Disaster. Many of you may be familiar with John McQuaid as co-author of "Path of Destruction" with our own Herollero Mark 'Big Schleif' Schleifstein.
State of the Port of New Orleans: challenged but improving ~Breakbulk
Local levee districts will pay $20 million to settle one Katrina class action lawsuit
~Mark Schleifstein
New Orleans Lawyers file 150 toxic Chinese dry wall lawsuits!
Letters pouring into Times-Picayune protesting destructive LSU/VA proposal
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Nagin, undocumented workers: You're welcome in New Orleans
~Katie Moore
Jim Brown on churches, Louisiana politics and school house presidential speeches ~slabbed
Geoquiz fo'da President Deniers
~Liptrap's Lament-The Line
Charter school issues debated as educators gather for NOLA Conference~David Sentell
KC architectural firm plays role in rebirth of New Orleans
~Steve Paul~Any day now, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is expected to sign a contract to rebuild five libraries destroyed four years ago in the Federal Flood. Not Katrina wake
And if all goes according to plan, the libraries will open next spring, a mere 10 months after groundbreaking, thanks to a fast-track process that has had Kansas City architects operating at a breakneck pace for much of this year.
Business owners divided over future of French Quarter
~Richard A. Webster
What's cookin' in Nagin's Meff lab?~Your Right Hand Thief
Leadership for a change?
~We Could Be Famous
Politics With A Punch!~The show that is funnier than laughing gas, which takes an irreverent look at everything local, political, funny has another banner and teasing panel for Thursday September 10 at the Cricket Club, 2040 St. Charles, starting at 8pm with doors opening at 6. Join Jeff Crouere,~Tee Ray Bergeron, Stand Up Comedian, Funniest Man Alive
~Mitch Gibbs, WGSO Radio Talk Show Host, Attorney
~Tyrone Hughes, Former New Orleans Saints Superstar
~Irvin Mayfield, Trumpeter, Bandleader, Cultural Ambassador
~Trixie Minx, Burlesque Dancer, Fleur de Tease Show
~James Perry, Mayoral Candidate , Housing Activist
~J.D. Sledge, Comedian Extraordinaire, Top N.O.. Talent
New Orleans Burlesque Festival bump and grind this weekend
~Molly Reid
Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Amanda Shaw headline 3rd annual New Orleans Seafood Festival
Blues, jazz singer Juanita Brooks passes away overnight
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Mercredi
Levees.Org Expands National Presence, Establishes Its Sixth Chapter: New York
~Levees.org,
a New Orleans-based non-profit formed after Katrina with a mission of raising awareness about the nation's levee systems, today announced the opening of its sixth chapter.
The New York chapter joins existing chapters in Louisiana, Florida, California, Illinois and Oregon, boasting in total over 24,000 supporters.
~Editillos & Ho'tellas~Congratulations and Salutations!
Welcome New York to the City That Care Forgot NOT!
Remember New Orleans
~Walled-In Pond
Katrina: What Happened When
~FactCheck.org
"It's not about getting health care to the people of NOLA.
It's about money and power."
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Los Angeles wildfires: Survey of disaster survivors reveals why some stay~Shari Roan
~The recent wildfires in Los Angeles and ensuing evacuation orders raise the touchy question of why some people refuse to leave their homes and risk their lives. Do they have a death wish? Long for a little excitement? Were they unable to leave?
A study of Hurricane Katrina survivors, published this summer in the journal Psychological Science, found that none of those assumptions fit. Instead, the people who defied evacuation orders -- many of whom had limited financial resources -- did not feel powerless or passive but instead saw themselves as connected to their neighbors and dependent on each other.
They also expressed their faith in God and strong feelings about caring for others.
Can A White Candidate Be The Next New Orleans Mayor?
~ Stephen Sabludowsky
James Gill: Councilman Arnie Fielkow offers a definite 'maybe' on New Orleans' mayoral race
Businesses find pot of gold at end of Decadence weekend
~Richard A. Webster
AP photographer gets subpoena in Katrina probe
~Michael Kunzelman
New Orleans Cold Storage to relocate Uptown
~Jen DeGregorio
Mississippi Oyster Season Opening Postponed
LSU graduate student rides unicycle from Baton Rouge to New Orleans ~Karen Gros
Harry Shearer's Le Show now on in New Orleans!~Gambit
“Tremé” writers at Octavia Books Sept. 16~Kevin Allman
Happy Birthday DJ Soul Sister on'da Dirty Coast!
~Levees.org,a New Orleans-based non-profit formed after Katrina with a mission of raising awareness about the nation's levee systems, today announced the opening of its sixth chapter.
The New York chapter joins existing chapters in Louisiana, Florida, California, Illinois and Oregon, boasting in total over 24,000 supporters.
~Editillos & Ho'tellas~Congratulations and Salutations!
Welcome New York to the City That Care Forgot NOT!
Remember New Orleans
~Walled-In Pond
Katrina: What Happened When
~FactCheck.org
"It's not about getting health care to the people of NOLA.
It's about money and power."
~SaveCharityHospital.com
Los Angeles wildfires: Survey of disaster survivors reveals why some stay~Shari Roan
~The recent wildfires in Los Angeles and ensuing evacuation orders raise the touchy question of why some people refuse to leave their homes and risk their lives. Do they have a death wish? Long for a little excitement? Were they unable to leave?
A study of Hurricane Katrina survivors, published this summer in the journal Psychological Science, found that none of those assumptions fit. Instead, the people who defied evacuation orders -- many of whom had limited financial resources -- did not feel powerless or passive but instead saw themselves as connected to their neighbors and dependent on each other.
They also expressed their faith in God and strong feelings about caring for others.
Can A White Candidate Be The Next New Orleans Mayor?
~ Stephen Sabludowsky
James Gill: Councilman Arnie Fielkow offers a definite 'maybe' on New Orleans' mayoral race
Businesses find pot of gold at end of Decadence weekend
~Richard A. Webster
AP photographer gets subpoena in Katrina probe
~Michael Kunzelman
New Orleans Cold Storage to relocate Uptown
~Jen DeGregorio
Mississippi Oyster Season Opening Postponed
LSU graduate student rides unicycle from Baton Rouge to New Orleans ~Karen Gros
Harry Shearer's Le Show now on in New Orleans!~Gambit
“Tremé” writers at Octavia Books Sept. 16~Kevin Allman
Happy Birthday DJ Soul Sister on'da Dirty Coast!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Mardi~ Pump You, New Orleans!
Gates at London Avenue Canal will be lowered during heavy rains, Corps says...
What About the Bad Pumps,
New Orleans Says?
Pump You, Corps Sayz
~The corps said that when the gates on the London Avenue Canal are lowered, "temporary pumps" will be able to continue moving water out of the canal and into the lake.
~Editilla Rotellas~ This UpDate is brought to you by the same faux "journalist" of the Bad Pumps posted earlier today.
She seems to be popping them out like rats in a windmill,
these articles of faith and daring poo. Jeez Louie. What next?
Cold War Duck and Cover? Head Between Legs, Kiss Ass Bye'bye?
Here is a possible reason for this Co'piece shoveling out fall,
as nailed by our Herolleros at Levees.org
In what now appears to be a Full Corps PRess they bring out.... The Yeah Dude. All over the TeeVee Tubes.
So OK, here is our own little prime time line:
1) Office of Special Counsel issues a Report on Bad Pumps --which is Reported by Real Honest to Green Goddess Savvy Journalists Women outside of New Orleans.
2) WWL jumps on this story like a Hot Catahoula.
3) Editilla waits and waits for the Times-Picayune until we can't stands no more and write an letter to several T-P journalists, and a few others, including the attorney of the whistle blower,
(not even considering the above mentioned faux gumshoe PR Ho)
4) Gumshoe'Ho comes out with this mornings puff'boo NonSense.
5) Editilla swallows the Fear Grenade and commences to ripping Brain Holes in the Hall.
6) This same Imbecile Hack fixes another out fall piece
(follow-up?)(Secondary PR Framing Placement?)
7) Lo and Behold suddenly they bring out The Yeah Dude Project Leader on TVs to what... reassure the public that the Corps doesn't want to kill us all...just yet that is?
"Yeah, we are confident they are safe. Again, we ran them for 12 to 13 hours during hurricanes Gustav and Ike and they performed fine," said Chris Accardo with the Corps.
"So yeah, we're confident the pumps will perform as designed during a hurricane event."
Oh Snap! Yeah'Boy! Do I feel safer now!
Soooo, we are sure now that Yeah Dude won't mind us getting a look at those operations log-books for the Pumps, eh?
Damn, the way they are rolling this story, one might easily think the Corps saw this PR ASCE'fuck coming.
What About the Bad Pumps,
New Orleans Says?
Pump You, Corps Sayz
~The corps said that when the gates on the London Avenue Canal are lowered, "temporary pumps" will be able to continue moving water out of the canal and into the lake.
~Editilla Rotellas~ This UpDate is brought to you by the same faux "journalist" of the Bad Pumps posted earlier today.
She seems to be popping them out like rats in a windmill,
these articles of faith and daring poo. Jeez Louie. What next?
Cold War Duck and Cover? Head Between Legs, Kiss Ass Bye'bye?
Here is a possible reason for this Co'piece shoveling out fall,
as nailed by our Herolleros at Levees.org
We think it's unfortunate that the Corps will close the London Avenue gates at a lower lake elevation (i.e. 2 feet higher water than normal) further restricting the S&WB from removing water in a rainfall event.Ummm, yeah! Me Too! Oh but wait there's more!
And we find it odd that Ms. Grissett did not interview anyone from the Water Board.
We are also dismayed that Ms. Grissett described the 17th Street Canal failure as due to follow-up dredging.
No study points to dredging as the primary or even secondary culprit.
The Corps' own studies (IPET) say the primary cause of failure of the 17th was inferior design by the Army Corps.
Any attempt to frame dredging as the primary cause of failure is an attempt to divert attention away from the truth. All this is explained very well in pages 6-12 of Judge Stanwood Duval's January 30, 2008 Dismissal Order. Statements in a federal judgement can most certainly be put forth as fact.
Sandy Rosenthal, founder Levees.org
H.J. Bosworth Jr. reseach director, Levees.org
In what now appears to be a Full Corps PRess they bring out.... The Yeah Dude. All over the TeeVee Tubes.
So OK, here is our own little prime time line:
1) Office of Special Counsel issues a Report on Bad Pumps --which is Reported by Real Honest to Green Goddess Savvy Journalists Women outside of New Orleans.
2) WWL jumps on this story like a Hot Catahoula.
3) Editilla waits and waits for the Times-Picayune until we can't stands no more and write an letter to several T-P journalists, and a few others, including the attorney of the whistle blower,
(not even considering the above mentioned faux gumshoe PR Ho)
4) Gumshoe'Ho comes out with this mornings puff'boo NonSense.
5) Editilla swallows the Fear Grenade and commences to ripping Brain Holes in the Hall.
6) This same Imbecile Hack fixes another out fall piece
(follow-up?)(Secondary PR Framing Placement?)
7) Lo and Behold suddenly they bring out The Yeah Dude Project Leader on TVs to what... reassure the public that the Corps doesn't want to kill us all...just yet that is?
"Yeah, we are confident they are safe. Again, we ran them for 12 to 13 hours during hurricanes Gustav and Ike and they performed fine," said Chris Accardo with the Corps.
"So yeah, we're confident the pumps will perform as designed during a hurricane event."
Oh Snap! Yeah'Boy! Do I feel safer now!
Soooo, we are sure now that Yeah Dude won't mind us getting a look at those operations log-books for the Pumps, eh?
Damn, the way they are rolling this story, one might easily think the Corps saw this PR ASCE'fuck coming.
Times-Picayune Spins, Filters, Blows Smoke over warning that "temporary" pumps in N.O. could fail catastrophically
~A federal whistle-blower continues to claim that temporary hydraulic pumps in New Orleans outfall canals aren't properly tested and contain potentially fatal flaws that could cause them to fail catastrophically in a hurricane.
~Editilla Crowtellas~This lead-off sentence is a misleading and almost false statement by Sheila Grissett and the Times-Picayune because it is no longer that "A federal whistle-blower continues to claim" --but the Office of Special Counsel issues the findings of an independent report to the President done by their own engineer which states more factually the malfeasance and corruption surrounding the Corps of Engineers and this entire operation since the Corps' Levees Failed and killed over 1200 citizens 8/29/05.
This is why they call it Conflicts of Interests.
Hey, believe me we would like to hail this as valid journalism and support the T-P but unfortunately we cannot compete with the Corps/OPP Ad Budgets, despite having already funded that contract with our own $5,000,000 in taxes.
This article seems like A Thing at face value, but it is No Thing --since the reality of this crime goes much deeper than what Ms Grissett has laid out here in this Cool Aid Partay.
This story Is Not About Whistle Blower Complaints. It is about the results of a Federal Investigation of Wrong Engineering and Corrupt Contracting and Building of Our Future Flood Protection.
And an update from this same "journalist" who appears to be popping out the COPPPR (Corps OPP PR) in rapid-fire: Corps plans to Close Outfall Canal Gates during Rainstorms!
We would have expected Mark "Big Schleif" Schleifstein to cover such a huge story but they put up Sheila Grissett, a cub reporter with a proven Corps Bias. Indeed when we corresponded an email string to several of our favorite T-P journalists (and others) about this story, only Mark Schleifstein responded at first, albeit with a guilt-tripping "I am insulted by your inferences that OPP influences our paper's editorial policy and btw we lost people too" crying game. While we would love to give you Editilla's response to that passive-aggressive boo'rah horse shit, let us instead give you the only other response to our query thread thus far:
Dear Mr. Schleifstein,
You are also one of my favorite journalists and my concerns are related to Editilla's; however, I have a different angle as the attorney who represents the whistleblower, twice vindicated by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, who blew the whistle on the defective hydraulic pumps. The Times-Picayune has not covered the report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel finding that the hydraulic pumps are defective, the Corps wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, New Orleans residents are currently at risk, and the Corps probably violated the Clean Water Act.
It was covered by USA Today on August 25 and in a 4-part series by NPR affiliate Molly Peterson from August 25-29.
“WWL, The Think Tank with Garland Robinette” also did a piece on it.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pushing an astronomically expensive fix on Congress to fund its supposed grand master “Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System.”
In reality, it’s nothing short of an expensive cover-up of the Corps’ own mistakes since Katrina.
To add insult to injury, the Corps is telling the roughly 311,800 of New Orleans residents that they are safe.
Brigadier General Michael J. Walsh, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division of the Corps, claimed in a Times-Picayune editorial that today’s pumps were only meant to be “temporary.” But the Corps’ recent assertion the pumps require replacement was never part of the original game plan.
Walsh’s assertion that the pumps were built to last just five-to-seven years is repeated by Corps officials as if it were gospel, when in reality, a 50-year lifespan is what the Corps had always contemplated and what Congress approved.
Think about it. Would Congress really have spent over half a billion dollars on something with only a five-year lifespan?
Three official Project Information Reports that the Corps submitted to Congress to obtain authorization and funding for its quagmire repeatedly presented the economic lifespan analysis of water pumps using a 50-year period.
Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Corps' Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans, told the public a year and a half ago that the current pumps "have something around a 50-year lifespan. These were designed to be there for 50 years."
Rather than paying what the Corps estimates would be $430 million to correct the problems associated with the defective hydraulic pumps now in place, the agency instead is proposing to abandon the half a billion dollar project it already built, destroy it and haul away the “temporary” gated closure structure with installed pumps, and then spend almost $700 million to rebuild everything from scratch. Moreover, the Corps is making deceptive and dangerous public pronouncements that the present pumps have been “battle-tested” by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike (Brigadier General Walsh said this in his Op-Ed you ran). The U.S. Office of Special Counsel hired an independent engineering expert to evaluate the pumping system, and the expert criticized this very assertion because it fails to mention that the pumps were run at low operating speeds and pressures, intermittently, and for short periods during the hurricanes. [Links to the report can be found here and here.]
The Special Counsel’s report and the "black box" information (known as "SCADA data”) prove the hydraulic pumps were not utilized when canal water levels were highest at the beginning of each storm, not allowed to run at full operating speeds and pressures, and not allowed to run for extended periods of time that replicate a real-life hurricane event.
I wrote an Op-Ed to this effect, which was accepted by the Times-Picayune and edited down to the tag line, only to have it killed because it had “no local nexus.” No local nexus?
This is information that affects 311,000+ people.
Why has the New-Orleans Times-Picayune not covered the recent news about the defective hydraulic pumps when the national media has done so?
Respectfully,
Jesselyn Radack
Editilla pulls the Pin on our Sanity Grenade! This is getting Ridiculous. It is time to boycott the T-P Advertisers.
2 different other journalists have been hammering this story during the Anniversary, and WWL covered it --and yet when finally we get our local Times-Picayune to weigh in it is with the Last Word of the Exquisite Corps!
My favorite bias of Ms Grissett and the T-P here is how she opens with such a "slider" and closes this article with the Corps Last Word from Karen Durham-Aguilera, the Task Force Hope chief: "Their problems are with the Department of Defense inspector general's report, and I'm not going to comment on what she believes or doesn't believe, " Durham-Aguilera said. "She has a right to her opinion, but she's in Los Angeles and hasn't been here since 2006."
Sorry Mxz D-A, but when did YOU show up on this scene? 2007? Before that you oversaw the flooding in the Northwest Districts in 2005-2006 and the Corps Contracting Fiascoes in Iraq?
Where'Yat, Ms Ramrod of Hope?
While the Exquisite Corps builds yet another "Worlds Largest Pump" across the river, do we assume that that project will also proceed with just the same honesty and open budgets of Flood Funding that we find from the Office of Special Counsel?
AND, this current crime of course begs the question of the Corps costs Over-estimates on Pump Option 2, opposed to this Option 1 which they have skillfully shoved up our ASCEs.
~Jesselyn Radack:
Molly Peterson: The January after Katrina, two weeks after it opened bids, the Army Corps awarded a $26 million contract for the pumps to Florida-based Moving Water Industries. Garzino says that’s a fast schedule.
Public records indicate the company’s schedule was more aggressive than she knew. Even before the Florida company won the contract, it ordered 37 diesel engines from Caterpillar, at an estimated cost of more than $2 million.
The winning company also requested custom pump parts called impellers from a foundry three days before it was certain to need them.
In a debriefing with the Corps, another company that bid for the contract, FPI, raised questions about the way Moving Water Industries, or MWI, won the project. The first voice is FPI’s Bill Miller. The second is Corps contract officer Cindy Nicholas.
Bill Miller: MWI had already ordered the engines, and everyone else said that would be awarded the job.
Cindy Nicholas: Well, I don’t know anything about that, sir. If they ordered them on their own, they must have taken a big risk.
Miller: Well, obviously that was a risk that paid off, let’s put it that way.
Peterson: The Army Corps maintains it properly issued the contract. Maria Garzino is a contract specialist, but her concerns go far beyond contracting. She was present when Moving Water Industries started to test the pumps in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Garzino: As we turned the machinery on it started failing.
The more we ran it, the more severe the failures were.
"New Orleans and its residents have been ruthlessly slandered"
~Your Right Hand Thief
The feeling is Mutual
--so is the fact~slabbed
Soft job market expected for NO metro area~Don Ames
RTA floats proposal for 3 new streetcar lines in New Orleans
~Frank Donze
Pitfalls for Planning in NOLA ~Will Cordeiro
Delgado turns away students due to lingering storm damage
~Emilie Bahr
The Printabulous Publishing Machine~ Katie Van Syckle
Center for the Study of New Orleans hosts first event
NolaFunk NYC Lagniappe
~A federal whistle-blower continues to claim that temporary hydraulic pumps in New Orleans outfall canals aren't properly tested and contain potentially fatal flaws that could cause them to fail catastrophically in a hurricane.
~Editilla Crowtellas~This lead-off sentence is a misleading and almost false statement by Sheila Grissett and the Times-Picayune because it is no longer that "A federal whistle-blower continues to claim" --but the Office of Special Counsel issues the findings of an independent report to the President done by their own engineer which states more factually the malfeasance and corruption surrounding the Corps of Engineers and this entire operation since the Corps' Levees Failed and killed over 1200 citizens 8/29/05.
This is why they call it Conflicts of Interests.
Hey, believe me we would like to hail this as valid journalism and support the T-P but unfortunately we cannot compete with the Corps/OPP Ad Budgets, despite having already funded that contract with our own $5,000,000 in taxes.
This article seems like A Thing at face value, but it is No Thing --since the reality of this crime goes much deeper than what Ms Grissett has laid out here in this Cool Aid Partay.
This story Is Not About Whistle Blower Complaints. It is about the results of a Federal Investigation of Wrong Engineering and Corrupt Contracting and Building of Our Future Flood Protection.
And an update from this same "journalist" who appears to be popping out the COPPPR (Corps OPP PR) in rapid-fire: Corps plans to Close Outfall Canal Gates during Rainstorms!
We would have expected Mark "Big Schleif" Schleifstein to cover such a huge story but they put up Sheila Grissett, a cub reporter with a proven Corps Bias. Indeed when we corresponded an email string to several of our favorite T-P journalists (and others) about this story, only Mark Schleifstein responded at first, albeit with a guilt-tripping "I am insulted by your inferences that OPP influences our paper's editorial policy and btw we lost people too" crying game. While we would love to give you Editilla's response to that passive-aggressive boo'rah horse shit, let us instead give you the only other response to our query thread thus far:
Dear Mr. Schleifstein,
You are also one of my favorite journalists and my concerns are related to Editilla's; however, I have a different angle as the attorney who represents the whistleblower, twice vindicated by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, who blew the whistle on the defective hydraulic pumps. The Times-Picayune has not covered the report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel finding that the hydraulic pumps are defective, the Corps wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, New Orleans residents are currently at risk, and the Corps probably violated the Clean Water Act.
It was covered by USA Today on August 25 and in a 4-part series by NPR affiliate Molly Peterson from August 25-29.
“WWL, The Think Tank with Garland Robinette” also did a piece on it.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pushing an astronomically expensive fix on Congress to fund its supposed grand master “Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System.”
In reality, it’s nothing short of an expensive cover-up of the Corps’ own mistakes since Katrina.
To add insult to injury, the Corps is telling the roughly 311,800 of New Orleans residents that they are safe.
Brigadier General Michael J. Walsh, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division of the Corps, claimed in a Times-Picayune editorial that today’s pumps were only meant to be “temporary.” But the Corps’ recent assertion the pumps require replacement was never part of the original game plan.
Walsh’s assertion that the pumps were built to last just five-to-seven years is repeated by Corps officials as if it were gospel, when in reality, a 50-year lifespan is what the Corps had always contemplated and what Congress approved.
Think about it. Would Congress really have spent over half a billion dollars on something with only a five-year lifespan?
Three official Project Information Reports that the Corps submitted to Congress to obtain authorization and funding for its quagmire repeatedly presented the economic lifespan analysis of water pumps using a 50-year period.
Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Corps' Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans, told the public a year and a half ago that the current pumps "have something around a 50-year lifespan. These were designed to be there for 50 years."
Rather than paying what the Corps estimates would be $430 million to correct the problems associated with the defective hydraulic pumps now in place, the agency instead is proposing to abandon the half a billion dollar project it already built, destroy it and haul away the “temporary” gated closure structure with installed pumps, and then spend almost $700 million to rebuild everything from scratch. Moreover, the Corps is making deceptive and dangerous public pronouncements that the present pumps have been “battle-tested” by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike (Brigadier General Walsh said this in his Op-Ed you ran). The U.S. Office of Special Counsel hired an independent engineering expert to evaluate the pumping system, and the expert criticized this very assertion because it fails to mention that the pumps were run at low operating speeds and pressures, intermittently, and for short periods during the hurricanes. [Links to the report can be found here and here.]
The Special Counsel’s report and the "black box" information (known as "SCADA data”) prove the hydraulic pumps were not utilized when canal water levels were highest at the beginning of each storm, not allowed to run at full operating speeds and pressures, and not allowed to run for extended periods of time that replicate a real-life hurricane event.
I wrote an Op-Ed to this effect, which was accepted by the Times-Picayune and edited down to the tag line, only to have it killed because it had “no local nexus.” No local nexus?
This is information that affects 311,000+ people.
Why has the New-Orleans Times-Picayune not covered the recent news about the defective hydraulic pumps when the national media has done so?
Respectfully,
Jesselyn Radack
Editilla pulls the Pin on our Sanity Grenade! This is getting Ridiculous. It is time to boycott the T-P Advertisers.
2 different other journalists have been hammering this story during the Anniversary, and WWL covered it --and yet when finally we get our local Times-Picayune to weigh in it is with the Last Word of the Exquisite Corps!
My favorite bias of Ms Grissett and the T-P here is how she opens with such a "slider" and closes this article with the Corps Last Word from Karen Durham-Aguilera, the Task Force Hope chief: "Their problems are with the Department of Defense inspector general's report, and I'm not going to comment on what she believes or doesn't believe, " Durham-Aguilera said. "She has a right to her opinion, but she's in Los Angeles and hasn't been here since 2006."
Sorry Mxz D-A, but when did YOU show up on this scene? 2007? Before that you oversaw the flooding in the Northwest Districts in 2005-2006 and the Corps Contracting Fiascoes in Iraq?
Where'Yat, Ms Ramrod of Hope?
While the Exquisite Corps builds yet another "Worlds Largest Pump" across the river, do we assume that that project will also proceed with just the same honesty and open budgets of Flood Funding that we find from the Office of Special Counsel?
AND, this current crime of course begs the question of the Corps costs Over-estimates on Pump Option 2, opposed to this Option 1 which they have skillfully shoved up our ASCEs.
~Jesselyn Radack:
Molly Peterson: The January after Katrina, two weeks after it opened bids, the Army Corps awarded a $26 million contract for the pumps to Florida-based Moving Water Industries. Garzino says that’s a fast schedule.
Public records indicate the company’s schedule was more aggressive than she knew. Even before the Florida company won the contract, it ordered 37 diesel engines from Caterpillar, at an estimated cost of more than $2 million.
The winning company also requested custom pump parts called impellers from a foundry three days before it was certain to need them.
In a debriefing with the Corps, another company that bid for the contract, FPI, raised questions about the way Moving Water Industries, or MWI, won the project. The first voice is FPI’s Bill Miller. The second is Corps contract officer Cindy Nicholas.
Bill Miller: MWI had already ordered the engines, and everyone else said that would be awarded the job.
Cindy Nicholas: Well, I don’t know anything about that, sir. If they ordered them on their own, they must have taken a big risk.
Miller: Well, obviously that was a risk that paid off, let’s put it that way.
Peterson: The Army Corps maintains it properly issued the contract. Maria Garzino is a contract specialist, but her concerns go far beyond contracting. She was present when Moving Water Industries started to test the pumps in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Garzino: As we turned the machinery on it started failing.
The more we ran it, the more severe the failures were.
"New Orleans and its residents have been ruthlessly slandered"
~Your Right Hand Thief
The feeling is Mutual
--so is the fact~slabbed
Soft job market expected for NO metro area~Don Ames
RTA floats proposal for 3 new streetcar lines in New Orleans
~Frank Donze
Pitfalls for Planning in NOLA ~Will Cordeiro
Delgado turns away students due to lingering storm damage
~Emilie Bahr
The Printabulous Publishing Machine~ Katie Van Syckle
Center for the Study of New Orleans hosts first event
NolaFunk NYC Lagniappe
Monday, September 7, 2009
Lundi~Happy Our Labor'atory
An Ideology Responsible for the Katrina Debacle Deserves
No Second Chances!
~Russel G. Davis~And history repeated itself when Katrina hit. FEMA was unable to deal with the aftermath when 53 levee breaches left our fellow citizens helpless before rioters, rapists, thieves and feces soaked water.
I count that as ceding territory.
I may be alone, but the "Nation" or the "Government" or whatever you want to call it was unable to help those people for about a week and a half.
The Army Corp of Engineers had known since 1986 that those levees were vulnerable. Are we supposed to believe that not one Congressional budget passed from 1986 to 2005 could have spared money to repair those levees? We could afford plenty of presents to the Pentagon, including two wars. And the main reason that money went where it went and didn't go where it was supposed to go was ideological.
White House site un-slams Bush on Katrina ~Brian Boyer
"Electric Chair"~PWALLY
~Wit'Special Editillos to the 30-Mighty-90!
No Second Chances!
~Russel G. Davis~And history repeated itself when Katrina hit. FEMA was unable to deal with the aftermath when 53 levee breaches left our fellow citizens helpless before rioters, rapists, thieves and feces soaked water.
I count that as ceding territory.
I may be alone, but the "Nation" or the "Government" or whatever you want to call it was unable to help those people for about a week and a half.
The Army Corp of Engineers had known since 1986 that those levees were vulnerable. Are we supposed to believe that not one Congressional budget passed from 1986 to 2005 could have spared money to repair those levees? We could afford plenty of presents to the Pentagon, including two wars. And the main reason that money went where it went and didn't go where it was supposed to go was ideological.
White House site un-slams Bush on Katrina ~Brian Boyer
"Electric Chair"~PWALLY
~Wit'Special Editillos to the 30-Mighty-90!
Opponents insist on rebuilding Charity despite new hospital board agreement
~Richard A. Webster
char·i·ty …
1 : benevolent goodwill toward
or love of humanity
~Squandered Heritage
New African disturbance 96L likely to develop ~Wunder Blog
State's Megafund Nearly Dry
~CENTRAL La. POLITICS
HANO scandal persists under feds ~Katy Reckdhal
Delgado Community College is short on money for repairs, and on usable space~John Pope
Happy Slabber Day!
The International Space Station as captured during the final spacewalk. Astronauts on board experience 16 sunrises-sunsets
Worker Status Checks to Start ~Cam Simpson
Tourists share thoughts on Coast recovery
Fish Fence is a Shocking Failure: Is it time to zip up the Great Lakes? ~Henry Henderson
~Knock, knock. They are here. And the only thing protecting Lake Michigan from the menace of a voracious invading predator that all agree will decimate the ecosystem is a quirky Rube Goldberg contraption put together by the Army Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, and EPA. It’s an electric fence for fish---a device that electrifies the water in the hopes that it will prevent the big fish from reaching the lakes.
Running electricity into the water sound a little dicey to you?
Van Jones Is Right:
They Are A–holes~Asrat Kebede
Book Review: Skunk Works
~NOLA-Dishu
Costumer Kim Martinez competes for a creative arts Emmy Award Saturday
~Susan Langenhennig
Cooking for someone on medical marijuana?~Serious Eats
~"I have a friend who is ill, as a result he has a medical marijuana card. I have made the ever popular brownies. Made some clarified butter with some the other day, what to do that would be palatable and comforting, also packed with some serious nutrition. Any ideas?"
Why is a secular artist performing at a Christian Church?~Music Think Tank
Good Vibrations at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago with the Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet
~Ronaldo Oregano
You Know You Were Rolling If… ~Red Cotton
~Richard A. Webster
char·i·ty …
1 : benevolent goodwill toward
or love of humanity
~Squandered Heritage
New African disturbance 96L likely to develop ~Wunder Blog
State's Megafund Nearly Dry
~CENTRAL La. POLITICS
HANO scandal persists under feds ~Katy Reckdhal
Delgado Community College is short on money for repairs, and on usable space~John Pope
Happy Slabber Day!
The International Space Station as captured during the final spacewalk. Astronauts on board experience 16 sunrises-sunsetsWorker Status Checks to Start ~Cam Simpson
Tourists share thoughts on Coast recovery
Fish Fence is a Shocking Failure: Is it time to zip up the Great Lakes? ~Henry Henderson
~Knock, knock. They are here. And the only thing protecting Lake Michigan from the menace of a voracious invading predator that all agree will decimate the ecosystem is a quirky Rube Goldberg contraption put together by the Army Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, and EPA. It’s an electric fence for fish---a device that electrifies the water in the hopes that it will prevent the big fish from reaching the lakes.
Running electricity into the water sound a little dicey to you?
Van Jones Is Right:
They Are A–holes~Asrat Kebede
Book Review: Skunk Works
~NOLA-Dishu
Costumer Kim Martinez competes for a creative arts Emmy Award Saturday
~Susan Langenhennig
Cooking for someone on medical marijuana?~Serious Eats
~"I have a friend who is ill, as a result he has a medical marijuana card. I have made the ever popular brownies. Made some clarified butter with some the other day, what to do that would be palatable and comforting, also packed with some serious nutrition. Any ideas?"
Why is a secular artist performing at a Christian Church?~Music Think Tank
Good Vibrations at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago with the Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet
~Ronaldo Oregano
You Know You Were Rolling If… ~Red Cotton
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Dimanche
Hurricane Katrina Cover-up: Junk Pumps~Jesselyn Radack
~Editilla tongues the pin of our Sanity Grenade~
Where the Hell is the Times-Picayune on this Failed Pumps story? Oh I forget, the T-P is Reducing Risk, Building Strong.
But we have No Canal Pumps this Hurricane Season?
We have No New Flood Walls this Hurricane Season?
While the Exquisite Corps builds yet another "Worlds Largest Pump" across the river, do we assume that that project will also proceed with just the same honesty and open budgets of Flood Funding that we find from the Office of Special Counsel?
Will the history books be accurate?~Stan Tiner
Dear Tiner,
Your opinion piece said: "Today we are not asking for volunteers to come or for more financial or material assistance, but what we do fervently wish is that history be recorded fully, accurately."
Amen.
The myths and misunderstandings about Katrina, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana are totally outrageous. We deserve the truth be recorded, but I worry the history books have already been written.
Most journalists parachuted in with their preconceived notions, pseudo facts, lazy but flowery language and consistently got it all amazingly wrong. Too many of our countrymen, politicians and so called journalists consider our pathetic situations to be nothing more than a partisan political issue.
The quick buck book authors got away with murder.
The tragic, border to border, complete destruction along the coast was impossible for nearly every one north of I-10 to comprehend. North of I-20? Forgetaboutit. Empty slabs just didn't photograph well enough. While everyone knew, and even witnessed, that the severe and damaging winds arrived long before the worst of the storm surge, very responsible families who religiously paid their homeowners premiums for decades were universally denied the product for which they paid and desperately needed to survive their losses. Folks spent weeks in totally destroyed communities without even being detected by disaster assistance government and Red Cross officials. They spent months in their tents waiting for a small hazardous tin can to call home while they tried to rebuild their lives.
Federal government homeowner rebuilding money often skipped the innocent families who needed it most. The beautiful serene Mississippi Gulf Coast and its wonderful people experienced one of the very worst natural disasters in our nation's history and hardly anyone even noticed or cared. It is more than enough to hurt your feelings. Your storm victims didn't even seem to get much empathy or understanding from Jackson.
On the bright side, at least the Gulf Coast isn't slandered by outsiders to the extent New Orleans suffers. The Gulf Coast even gets well deserved credit for their recovery efforts. At least the state of Mississippi seemed to receive nearly adequate federal funds in a timely manner for your storm losses along the coast.
Just as terribly wrong, New Orleans and its residents have been ruthlessly slandered like no American city has ever experienced anywhere else in our country. While official, well documented, negligent engineering by federal engineers in the design of our flood control structures and their foundations was absolutely the direct cause of our deaths, unprecedented and nearly total destruction, losses, discomforts and embarrassments, almost everyone everywhere thinks that dry, tame, west side of big bad Katrina 'overwhelmed' and 'devastated' New Orleans.
They believe our disaster was 'natural', us flood victims caused our flood, we deserved our fate and too many feel we should even be denied the right to exist. There are too many insulting and damaging myths about us to list here. Us levee failure victims didn't even seem to get much empathy or understanding from Baton Rouge.
Both Southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast deserve vindication and justice. We need the nation to know the truth. Outsiders cannot understand how all the misinformation has seriously disillusioned so many. Nor do they care.
The disturbingly wrong recording of history is insulting and has permanently scarred the psyche of both storm and levee failure victims. It's just wrong. Somehow, we must find a way to unite, organize and get the story out right.
Signed,
Crescent City Ray
Russell Honoré on Nola Crime, the La. National Guard and re-opening Charity Hospital
~we saw that
Renewable-energy companies growing in Louisiana
~Kathrine Schmidt
Wetlands pipeline would benefit Lafourche~Daily Comet
Feds Investigating Claims of Vigilantism in Post-Flood NOLA
~Patrik Jonsson
New Orleans Will Add First New Park Since Katrina
The tropics are quiet
~Dr Jeff Masters
5 Ways To Be Prepared for Costly Natural Disasters~Squawkfox
'Certifying' local levees could be costly endeavor
~Andre Stepankowsky
~Because of Mount St. Helens, the Cowlitz River is among the most studied waterways in the nation. And, with one possible exception, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined just last year that levees along the river still protect lower Cowlitz communities from 100-year floods. Nevertheless, a federal requirement that dikes across the nation be “certified” could cost local taxpayers hundreds of dollars each next year.
Big Insurance sets Sites on CA
~Also, reporting from Sacramento - As California heads into another season of wildfires that have been growing more frequent and more ferocious, homeowners are facing higher prices to insure their property.
Houma film crew earns a chance at Cannes
After Katrina, musically rich Treme is shrinking~Rose Stabler
Project 30-90 Festival lights up the river with green energy
~Dwayne Fatherree
~Editilla tongues the pin of our Sanity Grenade~
Where the Hell is the Times-Picayune on this Failed Pumps story? Oh I forget, the T-P is Reducing Risk, Building Strong.
But we have No Canal Pumps this Hurricane Season?
We have No New Flood Walls this Hurricane Season?
While the Exquisite Corps builds yet another "Worlds Largest Pump" across the river, do we assume that that project will also proceed with just the same honesty and open budgets of Flood Funding that we find from the Office of Special Counsel?
Will the history books be accurate?~Stan Tiner
Dear Tiner,
Your opinion piece said: "Today we are not asking for volunteers to come or for more financial or material assistance, but what we do fervently wish is that history be recorded fully, accurately."
Amen.
The myths and misunderstandings about Katrina, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana are totally outrageous. We deserve the truth be recorded, but I worry the history books have already been written.
Most journalists parachuted in with their preconceived notions, pseudo facts, lazy but flowery language and consistently got it all amazingly wrong. Too many of our countrymen, politicians and so called journalists consider our pathetic situations to be nothing more than a partisan political issue.
The quick buck book authors got away with murder.
The tragic, border to border, complete destruction along the coast was impossible for nearly every one north of I-10 to comprehend. North of I-20? Forgetaboutit. Empty slabs just didn't photograph well enough. While everyone knew, and even witnessed, that the severe and damaging winds arrived long before the worst of the storm surge, very responsible families who religiously paid their homeowners premiums for decades were universally denied the product for which they paid and desperately needed to survive their losses. Folks spent weeks in totally destroyed communities without even being detected by disaster assistance government and Red Cross officials. They spent months in their tents waiting for a small hazardous tin can to call home while they tried to rebuild their lives.
Federal government homeowner rebuilding money often skipped the innocent families who needed it most. The beautiful serene Mississippi Gulf Coast and its wonderful people experienced one of the very worst natural disasters in our nation's history and hardly anyone even noticed or cared. It is more than enough to hurt your feelings. Your storm victims didn't even seem to get much empathy or understanding from Jackson.
On the bright side, at least the Gulf Coast isn't slandered by outsiders to the extent New Orleans suffers. The Gulf Coast even gets well deserved credit for their recovery efforts. At least the state of Mississippi seemed to receive nearly adequate federal funds in a timely manner for your storm losses along the coast.
Just as terribly wrong, New Orleans and its residents have been ruthlessly slandered like no American city has ever experienced anywhere else in our country. While official, well documented, negligent engineering by federal engineers in the design of our flood control structures and their foundations was absolutely the direct cause of our deaths, unprecedented and nearly total destruction, losses, discomforts and embarrassments, almost everyone everywhere thinks that dry, tame, west side of big bad Katrina 'overwhelmed' and 'devastated' New Orleans.
They believe our disaster was 'natural', us flood victims caused our flood, we deserved our fate and too many feel we should even be denied the right to exist. There are too many insulting and damaging myths about us to list here. Us levee failure victims didn't even seem to get much empathy or understanding from Baton Rouge.
Both Southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast deserve vindication and justice. We need the nation to know the truth. Outsiders cannot understand how all the misinformation has seriously disillusioned so many. Nor do they care.
The disturbingly wrong recording of history is insulting and has permanently scarred the psyche of both storm and levee failure victims. It's just wrong. Somehow, we must find a way to unite, organize and get the story out right.
Signed,
Crescent City Ray
Russell Honoré on Nola Crime, the La. National Guard and re-opening Charity Hospital
~we saw that
Renewable-energy companies growing in Louisiana
~Kathrine Schmidt
Wetlands pipeline would benefit Lafourche~Daily Comet
Feds Investigating Claims of Vigilantism in Post-Flood NOLA
~Patrik Jonsson
New Orleans Will Add First New Park Since Katrina
The tropics are quiet
~Dr Jeff Masters
5 Ways To Be Prepared for Costly Natural Disasters~Squawkfox
'Certifying' local levees could be costly endeavor
~Andre Stepankowsky
~Because of Mount St. Helens, the Cowlitz River is among the most studied waterways in the nation. And, with one possible exception, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined just last year that levees along the river still protect lower Cowlitz communities from 100-year floods. Nevertheless, a federal requirement that dikes across the nation be “certified” could cost local taxpayers hundreds of dollars each next year.
Big Insurance sets Sites on CA
~Also, reporting from Sacramento - As California heads into another season of wildfires that have been growing more frequent and more ferocious, homeowners are facing higher prices to insure their property.
Houma film crew earns a chance at Cannes
After Katrina, musically rich Treme is shrinking~Rose Stabler
Project 30-90 Festival lights up the river with green energy
~Dwayne Fatherree
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)